Killed two; wounded nine or ten of us. Might as well have killed Lege, too, for all that they've left him a vegetable."

"Do you have a healer?"

"Not anymore." Moriko's voice was flat and hard as Gamon's. "Yrobbi was grabbed by a raider. Had a heart attack and died on the spot. Raiders would have killed the old man anyway-they went for his circlet as if it was gold till they realized he was a man, not a woman." The farmer shrugged. "They were looking for someone specific, I guess; he just happened to get in the way."

Dion tensed, and Kiyun, beside her, laid his hand on her arm. She didn't seem to notice, but Hishn's snarl turned toward the big man. Slowly, Kiyun removed his hand.

"We sent word to every village months ago," Gamon told the stocky man sharply. "You were to keep a watch posted at the relay stations and a few archers on duty at all times. Where were your archers? Why didn't the watch stations warn you?"

The farmer's eyes narrowed. "We've always been ignored by the raiders before this, so our archers were in the fields, planting, with the rest of us.

They have families to feed too, you know."

"They had families to guard-"

"Our crops," the other man cut in, "had to go in before the rains came so that the soil didn't clot up. Roots can't grow through clotted soil; they grow around the clods instead, and that kills the roots later-dries them out like bread when they're exposed to the summer heat. Our archers know that as well as any of us." His eyes darkened. "And it was just for half a ninan

while the weather held. Four or five days-anyone would have taken that chance if their livelihood depended on it."

"Even if their lives depended on doing something else?"

The man's lips tightened, but he didn't answer.

"So you figured the raiders wouldn't know that you had dropped your guard

for the planting," Gamon said, disgusted. He pointed to the bodies. "What about those two?"

The other man shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable.

Gamon just looked at him. "They lie here, in front of your house. Are you willing to take the responsibility for that yourself?" From the doorway, the woman listening wailed softly.

Gamon brushed Moriko's sword aside and took his arm, pushing the farmer to look toward the bodies that lay in the street. The farmer jerked free. His wife almost flew from the doorway, but Tehena moved like a flash between Gamon and the house, giving the other woman a look that stopped her in her tracks.

"These weren't trial-block deaths," Gamon said flatly.

The other man swallowed. "Lon- Some of the men got angry. Things just got out of hand."

"You mean you had a lynching, not a trial. Why?" Gamon demanded

harshly. "Where was your village Voice? Where were your elders?"

"Elder neBalrot was sick," Moriko retorted. "Two of our women and three of our men were taken or killed. We've got four farmers out of action for at least a month, and plantings on which we depend for survival. Yrobbi would have been killed if he hadn't died on his own. And the only reason his intern wasn't killed, too-they were looking for anyone with a silver band- was that Asuli isn't one to help with the plantings. She hid beneath one of the porch stones when the raiders hit us in the fields. And it's lucky

for us that she did, because without her there would have been no one to tend to our wounded."

Tehena snorted. "So you made the raiders pay for your hurts by beating

these two to death? Now that's a civilized response."

"Lon neHansin started it," the man snarled back. "He threw the first rock."

"The first rock? How many did you throw after that? And how many did

your mate throw?" Gamon cursed under his breath. "You're no better than the raiders themselves. Go on, hide in your house. Pretend you didn't have anything to do with it. It won't help you. This lynching will crawl around in your heart and fester till it rots your insides out. It'll eat at you until you look over your shoulder every time you turn around. Every time you swallow, the rot will grow in your throat till it chokes you as dead as you beat these two men. They may have been raiders, but they were still human

beings." He kicked a stone toward the man. It rolled to a stop at Moriko's

feet, and the farmer jerked back from it.

"No one," Gamon added forcefully, "deserves to die this way. And no one with a soul should ever have a hand in killing another man this way." He gave the villager a hard look. "Where are your wounded?"

Moriko struggled with his own anger, holding his voice.

Gamon cursed again under his breath and turned away.

The other man let out an oath. "You," he snarled at Gamon. "You turn back

to me now."

Gamon half paused and looked over his shoulder. His expression was not warm.

But the farmer wasn't daunted. Moriko took a step toward Gamon. "You're

a fine one to talk, neBentar. Oh, it's easy for you, isn't it, to come in here and judge our lives. You think you can tell us what's right or wrong, what we should or shouldn't have done. But you're not the one who had to make the decisions. You're not the one who has to live with what happened. We made our decisions based on things that you, in your distant town, with your high-and-mighty training, don't have to consider-like how we'll feed our families, come winter, if the crops don't go in the ground now." He spat to the side. "You, with your fancy sword and bow-where were you when we needed another archer? Where were you when the raiders came? We've lost brothers and sisters and sons. You've lost nothing here. But you stand there with the... the gall to tell us we were a little bit rough on the raiders who killed our daughters and sons? Who the hell do you think you are to judge us when you don't live here?"

Gamon's voice was dangerously calm. "You think we have to live here to understand what you did? You think proximity defines what is right and wrong?"

"It sure as hell defines who gets to make the judgment of it."

"I disagree." Gamon turned away again.

The villager grabbed the older man's arm. Like a gray wolf himself, Gamon

whipped his arm in a tight circle, catching the farmer's wrist in a flash and twisting so that the stocky man went down hard to his knees. The man's mate cried out, but Tehena grabbed her arm. For a moment, Dion's vision flickered: It was Aranur who held the man, not Gamon. It was Aranur's voice that rang in her ears. The link between Hishn and Dion was thick with both their mates, and the wolf's longing swamped her. She sucked in a breath, but Aranur's icy gray eyes hung in her sight. Then his straight black hair faded to gray; his lean, strong hands became gnarled with age. And Gamon stared down into the villager's face until the other man went pale from the pain.

"Do you feel this?" Gamon said softly. "This is proximity. What does it mean?"

"I don't know," Moriko gasped.

"It means pain, man. It means that I take advantage of you and cause you this pain-or more. I could push a little and break your wrist. I could push a lot and break your wrist, elbow, and shoulder all at the same time." He stared down into the farmer's eyes. "If I do break your bones, for no reason other than that I want to do so, is this act right or wrong?"

"It's wrong, damn you."

"Whether I do this to you or your mate, or to the farmer in the next town, does it change the rightness or wrongness of what I do?"

"No," the farmer gasped. "For moons' sake, let go-"

"So proximity to the act has nothing to do with the act itself."

"All right, all right, I get your point. Please-"

Gamon released him. Abruptly, the man fell to his hands and knees. When he looked up, his dark eyes were raging with suppressed fury. "You son of a worlag."

"Yes," Gamon agreed.

The farmer got slowly to his feet, his wrist cradled in his other hand. "Now what?"

"Now we tend to your wounded."

"Just like that? You come in here, spout your truths, berate our actions,

bully us, then say you'll tend to our wounded?"

"What else? You expect us to set up your trial block for you? Put you before your own elders for the lynching with which they probably helped?"

Moriko's face tightened.

"Your wounded?" Gamon prodded.

"You're fighters, archers." The farmer almost made the words a curse.

"You have nothing to offer our wounded."

"We're fighters, archers, swordsmen-yes. But-" Gamon indicated Dion with his chin. "-she is also a healer."

The man looked at Dion, then at the wolf. "Healer Hashiacci?"